The last Labour (UK) government launched the Iraq war, started privatising the NHS, brought in student fees and cut benefits for working people. They supported measures far more draconian than this, including detaining people without charge for 28 days.
The party was founded to empower workers and unions. But that was in 1900. Things have changed a lot on the last 120 years.
>If (hypothetically) Google shut down for a week over this or any other bill, it would not be passed.
Assuming that's true, its irrelevant. No one here can turn off Google (or Facebook or whatever else) for a week. So no one here is being petulant are they? A few very rich and powerful people might be able to. I'm happy to agree they should do more. But 99.999% of people can do nothing but complain.
Edit: FYI, I agree they should get on and unionize. But that will be a multi-year (maybe multi decade) process...
The most recent U.K. Labour government also reintroduced national minimum wage, raised the zero-tax threshold, and passed the Human Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act.
I don’t like everything they did, but they did do various things which supported worker rights.
I disagree fundamentally with many of the things the last UK Labour government did.
However at the same time, the last Australian Labor government combated the GFC with a stimulus package that allowed us to be the only country that survived the recession effectively unscathed. They developed the NBN which (before the Liberals got their hands on it) was affordable and actually stood a chance to revolutionise Australia's economy. The Labor government before that was responsible for the largest structural change to Australia's economy through floating the dollar.
My point is that just because one Labour government did many reprehensible things doesn't discount the very concept. And even in the UK (where Labour has struggled to get elected for decades), Labour governments have done more than a handful of worthwhile things in the past 120 years.
> No one here can turn off Google (or Facebook or whatever else) for a week. So no one here is being petulant are they?
Right, and I was going to say this in my original comment. But then I thought "if all the engineers who worked for Google striked, would Google function for a week?" and wasn't sure of the answer. This is ultimately the downside of working on self-regulating machines -- strikes become less effective because the machinery stops for no-one. But I still think general strikes by technology workers would be effective.
The party was founded to empower workers and unions. But that was in 1900. Things have changed a lot on the last 120 years.
>If (hypothetically) Google shut down for a week over this or any other bill, it would not be passed.
Assuming that's true, its irrelevant. No one here can turn off Google (or Facebook or whatever else) for a week. So no one here is being petulant are they? A few very rich and powerful people might be able to. I'm happy to agree they should do more. But 99.999% of people can do nothing but complain.
Edit: FYI, I agree they should get on and unionize. But that will be a multi-year (maybe multi decade) process...